The Over City is dead,
wiped out by a virus that mutated from the mood sticker known as Bliss and
became airborne. But in the Under City, where the motorway is the only place to
get from A – B in a matter of years, the city lives, well, albeit from those
with three passengers heading to the fast lane. Except the fast lane is closed,
and something is lurking in the bowels of the motorway, something that has been
feeding itself on the exhaust fumes of the choked motorway, where thousands of
people hover within a few feet of each other, exhaust fumes belching into the
enclosed atmosphere. It’s not a healthy place to be.
Many people have spent
their entire life on the motorway, been born and with any luck be able to reach
their destination before the children reach primary age. What an existence!
While they’re heading on
the road to nowhere, the Tenth Doctor arrives, brimming with excitement, having
already visited New New Earth many many seasons ago, with a completely
different companion, now he returns to show the place off to his next
companion, Martha Jones. Unimpressed by the fact that, she’s travelling with a
man on the rebound Martha finds herself car jacked by Cheen and Milo, desperate
to get off the motorway and head to the fast lane, in order to reach their new,
found destination, especially now since they have a baby on the way. Of course,
as we all know, things like that are never going to happen, not for a while at
least, but thankful in the knowledge that while a companion of the TARDIS
travels with them, and despite there being a ravaging monster, or monsters
lurking in the bowels of the motorway, no physical harm will come to her.
The Doctor confesses to
Brannigan his new travelling cat companion, and wife Valerie and their litter
of kittens, that he has to find Martha, it’s all his fault and he must get her
back. Except, life on the motorway throws up a barrel of frustration. A
hologram wishing them all well on their journey, a Ragged/Rugged Cross hymn to
keep them grounded, as well as the hope that one day a police car MAY actually
do something, the Doctor knows that the only way he can locate Martha is by
doing the unthinkable. Leaping from one car to the next till he reaches the
fast lane.
Of course, once again, his
plans are thwarted when a cat in a nurse’s wimple arrives toting a laser weapon
and zaps him to the Senate in the Over City, in order to speak to the last of
his kind, The Face of Boe.
Now if we’re all to
believe that the Face of Boe is actually Captain Jack Harkness, then there’s a
few things I’d like to know. Just what the bloody hell happened to Jack, that
he became a head in a glass jar, nursed by a cat in a nurse’s wimple? Just who
did he piss off to get to this point? Was it a few headless monks?
And why does the voice not
sound anything like Captain Jack Harkness?
Of course, the last one,
we already know the answer to. At this point, none of us had any idea that Jack
was the ‘big old face’.
The other two, well, I
guess, eventually, time will tell, but perhaps, I don’t really want to know.
Perhaps it’s like the enigma of Jack. You accept that he can’t die. That he’s a
good looking American hero, except that he’s not actually American. And that as
a con man, he came good and saved the world, and died saving humanity. But
still, a head in a jar?
But as with any Who
episode, written by RTD, it was those little enticing nugget portions. The
final words spoken by the FACE OF BOE.
‘You Are Not Alone.’
Of course, now we know
what all that meant, and how he knew where and when to plant the seed. And it’s
because of these little pieces of info that slot a complete series together
that I positively love Russell T Davies and I really wish he’d bring Torchwood
back if only to explain the Face of Boe and Captain Jack Harkness.
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